Various child safety barriers are know which are removably located in an opening of a doorway, stairway and/or the like to prevent a child or animal from going through the opening when the barrier is fitted and in a closed position. These conventional barriers typically include a frame which is fitted to the side walls of an opening. Likewise, a gate or barrier is hingedly or slidably mounted to the frame for movement between open and closed positions.
In order to ensure that the child safety barrier is not accidentally opened by a young child, some conventional gates require a user to exert a substantially vertical lifting force to an upper portion of the gate to overcome a lock position prior to opening the gate. The position of where the lifting force is to be exerted on the gate is considered out of reach for a young child, and the required lifting force is sufficiently large to prevent a young child from opening the gate. However, a problem with such gates is that a user can accidentally apply a twisting or horizontal force in addition to the lifting force when opening the gate and this can damage the hinges of the gate because most hinges are not designed to undergo such angular movement. As a result, the gate may be damaged and prevented from opening and closing smoothly over time due to hinge damage. Furthermore, any latch mechanism provided on the gate may become out of alignment with the latch retaining means to prevent correct latching of the gate in a closed position.
For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional gate assembly 2 including a barrier gate in the form of two gate panels 4, 6 for demonstrative purposes. As shown, the gate panels 4, 6 are slidably mounted to each other to allow adjustment of the width of the barrier gate to allow the gate assembly 2 to fit in different sized openings through which selective entry is required. The gate assembly 2 may be used as a child safety barrier to prevent young children or small animals from passing through the opening without adult supervision.
Each gate panel 4, 6 include a base member 8, 8′ and a top member 10, 10′ respectively. A plurality of upright strut members 12, 12′ are located at spaced apart intervals between the top 10, 10′ and base members 8, 8′.
At one side 14 of gate panel 6 there is provided upper and lower hinges 16, 18 respectively. At the opposite side 20 on gate panel 4, there are associated upper and lower latch mechanisms 22, 24 respectively. The upper and lower hinge means are typically substantially vertically and horizontally aligned with the upper and lower mechanisms respectively. Various difficulties have existed with the upper and lower latch mechanisms 22, 24 of conventional systems in that the gate assembly 2 required the user to carefully lift the gate 2 upward upon opening and closure in order to secure the upper and lower latch mechanisms 22, 24. Although various solutions have been proposed, none available has effectively solved this cumbersome issue.